6 Comments for “Waking Up to the Monkeypox Policy Disaster”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Monkeypox is neither novel nor highly infectious and can be contained by standard public education, reporting, contact tracing, isolation and vaccination protocols, similar to other infectious diseases. Government (local, state and federal) “emergency” declarations are not warranted at this point. Monkeypox will, of course, spread outside the MSM community in time, but is not likely to result in any significant number of deaths when it does so. The issue has been weaponized by both sides for political gain, and that is counterproductive to containing the disease.
posted by Edward TJ Brown on
Also, Trump was the only viable alternative to Biden. Do we really think a Trump admin would have handle monkeypox better than they bungled covid?
posted by Ricport on
And that in a nutshell is what’s fundamentally wrong with our country. We’re a duopoly, controlled by two failed parties that are controlled by their respective lunatic fringe. Until we start having viable third parties in to rein in the crazy from both sides, we’ll continue to go back and forth like dogs returning to their vomit.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“Do we really think a Trump admin would have handle monkeypox better than they bungled covid?”
It is very hard to tell how a Trump administration would have handled monkeypox, because the MAGAverse is on a collision course with itself on the question. The anti-vac/anti-mask constituency is aflame with the idea that Democrats will use the disease to “abuse emergency powers to restrict your freedom” (as Rhonda Santis put it the other day), while the Truther constituency is aflame with the idea that Monkeypox is “COVID 2”, an animal-to-human disease threatening to reach pandemic levels within months, characterizing the disease as a “disaster”.
Who knows which constituency of the MAGAverse would have gained ascendancy within a Trump administration? The only safe prediction about how a Trump administration would have handled Monkeypox is the prediction that the Trump administration’s response would be political in nature, rather than based on science.
Monkeypox is a known, not novel, disease, a disease that is not highly transmissible, is not spread by casual contact with asymptomatic carriers of the disease, and can be contained by standard disease-control protocols. Wisconsin, where I live, was the epicenter of the 2003 Monkeypox outbreak (vectored by, of all things, Prairie Dogs), and the disease was controlled.
The 2003 outbreak was minor in comparison to the current outbreak, but this outbreak can be controlled, too. I notice that the CDC issued an advisory yesterday suggesting that MSM restrain themselves sexually until the outbreak is contained, and that is something that MSM can do (as we proved during the HIV/AID years), if public education reaches the community.
Stephen and other homocons can, and no doubt will continue to, politicize Monkeypox, but that tactic is short-sighted and will do nothing to contain the disease.
posted by Doug on
Stephen is not interested in containing the disease. He just wants to stir the pot and further politicize Monkeypox.
posted by Edward TJ Brown on
If you are serious about more candidate choices, then you better be working for things like Ranked Choice Voting and more liberal ballot access rules.
6 Comments for “Waking Up to the Monkeypox Policy Disaster”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Monkeypox is neither novel nor highly infectious and can be contained by standard public education, reporting, contact tracing, isolation and vaccination protocols, similar to other infectious diseases. Government (local, state and federal) “emergency” declarations are not warranted at this point. Monkeypox will, of course, spread outside the MSM community in time, but is not likely to result in any significant number of deaths when it does so. The issue has been weaponized by both sides for political gain, and that is counterproductive to containing the disease.
posted by Edward TJ Brown on
Also, Trump was the only viable alternative to Biden. Do we really think a Trump admin would have handle monkeypox better than they bungled covid?
posted by Ricport on
And that in a nutshell is what’s fundamentally wrong with our country. We’re a duopoly, controlled by two failed parties that are controlled by their respective lunatic fringe. Until we start having viable third parties in to rein in the crazy from both sides, we’ll continue to go back and forth like dogs returning to their vomit.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“Do we really think a Trump admin would have handle monkeypox better than they bungled covid?”
It is very hard to tell how a Trump administration would have handled monkeypox, because the MAGAverse is on a collision course with itself on the question. The anti-vac/anti-mask constituency is aflame with the idea that Democrats will use the disease to “abuse emergency powers to restrict your freedom” (as Rhonda Santis put it the other day), while the Truther constituency is aflame with the idea that Monkeypox is “COVID 2”, an animal-to-human disease threatening to reach pandemic levels within months, characterizing the disease as a “disaster”.
Who knows which constituency of the MAGAverse would have gained ascendancy within a Trump administration? The only safe prediction about how a Trump administration would have handled Monkeypox is the prediction that the Trump administration’s response would be political in nature, rather than based on science.
Monkeypox is a known, not novel, disease, a disease that is not highly transmissible, is not spread by casual contact with asymptomatic carriers of the disease, and can be contained by standard disease-control protocols. Wisconsin, where I live, was the epicenter of the 2003 Monkeypox outbreak (vectored by, of all things, Prairie Dogs), and the disease was controlled.
The 2003 outbreak was minor in comparison to the current outbreak, but this outbreak can be controlled, too. I notice that the CDC issued an advisory yesterday suggesting that MSM restrain themselves sexually until the outbreak is contained, and that is something that MSM can do (as we proved during the HIV/AID years), if public education reaches the community.
Stephen and other homocons can, and no doubt will continue to, politicize Monkeypox, but that tactic is short-sighted and will do nothing to contain the disease.
posted by Doug on
Stephen is not interested in containing the disease. He just wants to stir the pot and further politicize Monkeypox.
posted by Edward TJ Brown on
If you are serious about more candidate choices, then you better be working for things like Ranked Choice Voting and more liberal ballot access rules.